Park City

Deer Valley allows no snowboards on its runs, which in June bothers nobody. From roughly December to April the two resorts either side of Park City's old town run on snow; from June to September the same slopes are trails, and the lifts on Park City Mountain take hikers and bikes instead of skiers. We had one night here in June, on a road trip through the West from Bozeman to Denver: time for a hike and a dinner, and not much more.

The town began as a silver-mining camp at around 7,000 feet. After a fire in 1898 it rebuilt its Main Street, and the old mining-camp buildings, on the National Register of Historic Places since 1978, now hold galleries and restaurants. It is a good street, but the setting is the real event: pine-covered mountainsides above the roofs, cut with ski runs waiting for winter. Park City Mountain's lifts start a short walk south-west of the shops. Deer Valley is up the hill behind.

A summer day here belongs on foot, which is how we spent ours. The Mid Mountain Trail runs about 28 miles of single track at around 8,000 feet between Deer Valley and Canyons Village, and nobody is obliged to finish it. On summer Sundays Main Street gives itself over to the Park Silly Sunday Market.

Old Town puts Main Street on the doorstep, with the free trolley running its length and condo and boutique hotels on the streets climbing the hill above. Deer Valley and Canyons Village are built around their lifts. Kimball Junction, on the valley floor with the chain shopping, is the first exit coming up from Salt Lake City, and handy mainly for that.

Mid-April to late May is mud season, when many restaurants close for a few weeks or cut their hours and the trails shut to dry out. October is a shorter lull before the snow, quiet, with the aspens turning. January has the opposite trouble: the Sundance Film Festival fills the town, and the prices rise to meet it.

Park City's Freemasons built their hall at 540 Main Street in 1908 for $6,000, and in 1983 it was restored to its original look with old photographs as the guide. Riverhorse on Main is in it now. We ate well there, slept, and were gone in the morning, one hike into more than 450 miles of trail.